Elise Shearer Named 2017 Tigard’s First Citizen

Elise Shearer has been named as the 2017 recipient of the Tigard’s First Citizen award.   This award recognizes someone who has made in-depth, long-term volunteer contributions to the Tigard community over the years. The winner is active, involved, interested and enthusiastic about making Tigard a nice place to live and work. This individual excels in any area of unpaid endeavor of education, social services, youth work, and community improvement of public services. This award is given in the spirit of all volunteers who remain unknown. The recipient joins the ranks of those previously honored in continually striving to improve the Tigard Area. 
Elise Shearer’s contributions to the Tigard community over the last few years in a volunteer capacity have been significant and have covered a wide range of organizations including St. Anthony’s (30 years), St. Vincent De Paul Pantry (5 years), SOLVE (3 years), Tigard Downtown Alliance (4 years), City of Tigard (10 years) and Metro (Current year).  Elise cares deeply about her community and it shows through the countless hours of volunteer, civic and local humanitarian service.  Through her involvement she is well versed in many aspects of city business, policy and process as well as needs within her community.  She has made an impact in the following areas of our community:

Education/Learning:

Elise served on the St. Anthony ESL Program Committee for 1 year as an ESL Advisory Member to the Parish Pastoral council, ensuring that English as a second language was taught at St. Anthony’s.  She felt so strongly about this program that she served as a volunteer teacher for 7 years in the St. Anthony’s ESL program. 

Social Services

Elise has made an impact on social services used by our Tigard community in a variety of ways including:

Member of ESL Program Committee for almost 8 years (2006-2013)
Volunteer with Tigard St. Vincent DePaul Pantry for the last five years (2012 – 2016)
Member of the St. Anthony’s Church Human Concerns Committee from 2014 to present.
Volunteer at St. Anthony’s Severe Weather Shelter for  two years.

Community Improvement and Investment

Downtown Tigard/Urban Renewal District

Member of Tigard City Center Advisory Commission (CCAC) (2007-2013).  This organization’s role is to make recommendations on urban renewal policy, budget and implementation to improve Tigard’s downtown area.  As a CCAC member, Elise represented CCAC at various commission meetings effecting the Urban Renewal District, including City Council/City Center Development Agency; acting as liaison to the Transportation Committee and following the SW Corridor Planning events; participating in the Façade/Tenant Improvement and Gateway Art Sub-Committees. 
Worked with SOLVE cleaning up Fanno Creek locally, from 2012-2015.
Tigard Downtown Alliance (TDA) founding Committee member (2013-2016).  The Tigard Downtown Alliance is focused on helping revitalize Downtown Tigard for the benefit of all and making it a destination for the community.

TDA Street Festival Volunteer (2013-2016)
TDA Tigard Art Walk Committee/Chair (2014-2016) she developed a new, cultural event in downtown Tigard; bringing professional and student artists together exhibiting their work in a juried event, inside businesses while Main Street Tigard was undergoing major construction on the street during the first year.  In 2015, she doubled professional participation, increasing Main Street business participants, adding a pop-up gallery inside a vacant building. She brought urban street art to Tigard with a weekend event where several artists painted 10 – 8 x 8 ft panels live in front of public audience. In 2016, again hosting a pop-up gallery in different vacant building, she placed art inside businesses and added the live presence of artists on the street creating and selling their art.

Her efforts as the Tigard Art Walk Committee Chair led to a 2015 Oregon Main Street, “Excellence in Downtown Revitalization” Award for Tigard for the Best Downtown Event, with Downtown Sub-Urban Art during Art Walk 2015 which included plein-air creations by artists of 8’x8’ art urban art pieces that were on display.

Transportation/Connectivity

Current member of the Tigard Transportation Advisory Committee (TTAC) since 2014. TTAC acts as an advisory body to the Tigard City Council and staff and provides a venue for citizen involvement opportunities in transportation matters and increasing community awareness of transportation issues that affect the City of Tigard.
As a TTAC member Elise also brings her CCAC experience to bear and weighs in on transportation projects affecting Tigard through her participation on the:

Tigard Triangle Citizen Advisory Committee (2013-2014)
Second Tigard Triangle Citizen Advisory Committee (2016)
SW Corridor Light Rail Community Advisory Committee (2017- 2018)

As you can see Elise has engaged at a broad level across the Tigard community on behalf of the community.  It is obvious she cares deeply about the place that she lives and its community members.  In all her roles representing and working with and for the improvement of the community, Elise has been tireless.  Anyone fortunate enough to work with her will appreciate her straight talk, can-do attitude, drive, and motivation. She stays connected, works with people effectively, while managing time and making a significant difference within all she does.  She is always looking out for the betterment of the community at large.

Please join us in congratulating Elise on her award and thanking her for her service to our Tigard community.  Her award will be formally presented with other Tigard volunteer and business awards at Tigard’s 2017 Shining Stars Community Awards Celebration, sponsored by Title Sponsors HomeStreet Bank (King City/Tigard Branch) and Center Street Gold & Silver.  The event will be held on Friday, April 28th from 5:30-9 p.m. at Embassy Suites – Washington Square, our event location host.  With a theme of “Roaring 20’s”, this elegant themed dinner event includes dinner, silent auction, dessert dash, awards, and more. Tickets are $55/person.  Dress your best and join us to celebrate Tigard!

For further details about Shining Stars, please contact the Tigard Chamber of Commerce at 503-639-1656 or at events@tigardchamber.org, or go to our webpage at www.tigardchamber.org.